Rand Paul injects a little reality into Senate debate over spending

I have to admit to not being a huge fan of Rand Paul. I like his honesty but disagree with him when he gets all libertarian on us. There are legitimate functions of government that he doesn't think are needed so we will just say that most conservatives will disagree with him on that but admire his forthright attack on the debt and deficit.

This speech he gave on the senate floor yesterday should be read by every member of congress. It is a hard dose of reality that few on Capitol Hill seem willing to face.

If we were to adopt the president's approach, we would have $1.65 trillion deficit in one year. If we were to adopt our [the Republican leadership's] approach, we're going to have a $1.55 trillion deficit in one year. I think both approaches do not significantly alter or delay the crisis that's coming.

Now, it's interesting when we talk about cuts, everybody seems to be giddy around here, saying this is the first time we have talked about cuts.

Well, it is better and it sounds good, but guess what? We're not even really cutting spending. What we're talking about is cutting the rate of increase of spending. The base line of spending is going to go up 7.3 % according to the CBO.

We're talking about reducing that increase to 6.7% increase. We're talking about cutting the rate of increase of government. The problem is it's not enough....

We have increased military spending by 120% since 2001. We have doubled military spending.

Now, I'm for a strong national defense. I believe that it is a constitutional function of the federal government to provide for our national defense. I think it is the pre-eminent power, the pre-eminent enumerated power, the thing we should be doing here. But even that being said, we cannot every eight years double the Defense Department, double the military spending....

do we want to have government by crisis?

We are going through this wrenching process in congress while only fiddling at the margins of the deficit. It is unreal given the size of the problem that we are tying each other in knots fighting over a few tens of billion dollars when several HUNDRED billion in cuts would be more to the point.

Would that there were more Rand Paul's to lead us out of this crisis.

I have to admit to not being a huge fan of Rand Paul. I like his honesty but disagree with him when he gets all libertarian on us. There are legitimate functions of government that he doesn't think are needed so we will just say that most conservatives will disagree with him on that but admire his forthright attack on the debt and deficit.

This speech he gave on the senate floor yesterday should be read by every member of congress. It is a hard dose of reality that few on Capitol Hill seem willing to face.

If we were to adopt the president's approach, we would have $1.65 trillion deficit in one year. If we were to adopt our [the Republican leadership's] approach, we're going to have a $1.55 trillion deficit in one year. I think both approaches do not significantly alter or delay the crisis that's coming.

Now, it's interesting when we talk about cuts, everybody seems to be giddy around here, saying this is the first time we have talked about cuts.

Well, it is better and it sounds good, but guess what? We're not even really cutting spending. What we're talking about is cutting the rate of increase of spending. The base line of spending is going to go up 7.3 % according to the CBO.

We're talking about reducing that increase to 6.7% increase. We're talking about cutting the rate of increase of government. The problem is it's not enough....

We have increased military spending by 120% since 2001. We have doubled military spending.

Now, I'm for a strong national defense. I believe that it is a constitutional function of the federal government to provide for our national defense. I think it is the pre-eminent power, the pre-eminent enumerated power, the thing we should be doing here. But even that being said, we cannot every eight years double the Defense Department, double the military spending....

do we want to have government by crisis?

We are going through this wrenching process in congress while only fiddling at the margins of the deficit. It is unreal given the size of the problem that we are tying each other in knots fighting over a few tens of billion dollars when several HUNDRED billion in cuts would be more to the point.